Tooth-pick



(No Model.)

0. G. FREEMAN. TOOTH PICK. No. 448.647. Patented Mar. 24, 1891.

WITNESSES: INVENTUFQM; cku)s6\Cwoaim Sam/W UNITED STATES CHARLES C. FREEMAN,

TOOTH PATENT OFFICE.

OF DIXFIELD, MAINE.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent N 0. 448,647, dated March 24, 1891.

Application filed October 3,1885. Renewed June 23,1890. Serial No. 356,318. (No model.)

To ctZZ whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, CHARLES C. FREEMAN, a citizen of the United States, residing at Dixfield, in the county of Oxford and State of Maine, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in TootlLPicks; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, which will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same.

My invention has for its object, as a new article of manufacture, a wooden tooth-pick, which by means of compression and polishing is made round and smooth.

It has been common to manufacture wooden tooth-picks by machinery. Tooth-picks thus made are somewhat rough and have not sufficiently fine points. Tooth-picks made by hand are generally somewhat smoother and have finer points than those made by Inachinery; but whether made by machinery or by hand Wooden tooth-picks as heretofore made, being manufactured of soft wood, are not sufficiently hard and firm to readily serve the purpose of a good tooth-pick.

Myinvention consists of atooth-pick which has been compressed by suitable means, so as to be hard and firm, and having its surface polished. In the Letters Patent granted to me February 27, 1887, numbered 359,029, there is described a mechanism for polishing, oompressing, and rounding. tooth-picks, thus producing such a tooth-pick as is above mentioned; but the tooth-pick may be also manufactured with other mechanism, the object being to take a piece of wood of suitable size,

firmly compress it, so as to make ithard and firm, round it so it shall taper gradually from its center to each end, and polish its surface.

In the drawing I have shown a tooth-pick such as I have described rounded, compressed, and taperin ggrad uall y from its center to each end.

The polishing material used in compressing and shaping the tooth-pick may be used or not, as desired.

My method of compressing or compacting the fibers of the splint toward or at its end or ends (as distinguished from cutting them off of successive lengths when making a point by cutting with a knife) leaves the fibers substantially integral all the way to the end, and the tapering point, being compressed the most, is the hardest. I

I claim- 1. As a new article of n'lanufacture, a wooden tooth-pick compressed to a rounded form and tapering point, substantially as set forth.

2. A tooth-pick made of soft wood compressed to a rounded form in cross-section and to a tapering point at both ends, sub stantially as set forth.

3. A wooden tooth-pick compressed to a rounded form in cross-section and to a tapering form at both ends and having its surface polished, substantially as above described.

CHARLES C. FREEMAN. Witnesses:

ALFRED COLE, CHARLOTTE B. FORSTER. 

